Hi Maki--I love reading your blogs and I've learned a lot about Japanese food on my visits. My question concerns some shiro miso I just bought. It's the first time I've used it (previously using red miso) and when I opened the container, I noticed it had a slightly sweet, almost moldy smell to it. I just used a few teaspoons to make a cup of miso soup with some wakame (yum!) and it tastes fine. Is this smell normal? I never noticed this smell with the red miso. It's a fresh variety called Miso Master, available at Whole Foods here in the Boston, MA (USA) area. What do you think?

Miso should smell pleasantly fermented, maybe just very slightly sour, but not moldy. But it's hard to tell how exactly it smells from here, lacking Internet Smellovision. :o If you eat it and you have no adverse reaction, I guess it's ok....but see if you can get some other people to take a whiff of it too.

Hi Maki--thanks for your quick reply. I just conducted another sniffing of my shiro miso and I would say that it does fit your description. I think Western palates (at least mine) are very uneducated when it comes to fermented foods. And, I guess the ultimate tests are how it tasted as miso soup and if I got sick--it tasted quite good and I had no problems after eating. I'll see if I can recruit other noses.